medium:

author gender:

first panel:
During the machine recount I kept the TV on in my studio. It was impossible to work with the TV going but I couldn't turn it off.
TV: Bush's lead is, like, shrinking.
LB: I swear. Ten more minutes.
TV: Or is it?
LB: Then I'll turn it off.
LB: Shh. I'll feed you guys in a sec.
Three dogs: EEE! EE-EE. YEEE!
LB: Wait. Twenty minutes. That's it.
LB: Ok. Half an hour.

second panel:
By the time the manual recounts began, I stopped working altogether. This was bad. Even with the TV off I couldn't concentrate. Why?
LB: C'mon! Clear your mind! Stop thinking about Katherine Harris! Write.
LB: Katherine Harris. Katherine Harris.
LB: This is insane.
p. 197

New! Favorite! Book! Ms. Barry covers some similar turf as she does in The Good Times Are Killing Me, but O!H!D! covers a broader spectrum of her "autobiofictionalography," plus it's illustrated. In color--over 200 pages. I'm impressed Sasquatch Books was able to put this out for $24.95 in '02. Barry did some zen painting exercise where the artist explores her demons, and this is the result. She shares 17 of hers with us, mostly about her childhood and adolescence, but a few take place in grown up life.

Seventh Grade
From the first day of seventh grade everyone was new. Even if you had known them all your life they were still new. And from the second we walked through the doors we all automatically split apart into groups of who was alike. Everyone knew exactly what to do, like someone was whispering instructions to our hands and feet and hair. Every kid from my old school, all of us who had ever lived on the same street together and played together all our lives stopped talking and walking with each other and never talked or walked with each other again. p. 77

I borrowed this book from Columbia's Butler Library, which like Barnard's library and unlike NYPL, still stamps the due date in the book, so you can tell how many people have checked it out before you. I miss that, NYPL! The earliest stamp is Nov 15 1989, and as best as I can tell it's been checked out about 15 times, though I have no way of telling how many times it was renewed. In an academic library with semester long borrowing periods, there's a good chance someone hoarded it for a year or two. I did that with Comics Librarianship: a Handbook for like three years in the early days of the Barnard Library Zine Collection. But getting back to the book at hand (sorry!), how did I not join the Lynda Barry cult sooner?